Floyd Mayweather Jr. apologizes for racist comments toward Manny Pacquiao

On his official UStream channel tonight, Floyd Mayweather Jr. apologized for recent racist comments that caused a major controversy in the boxing media.

BoxingScene.com has a transcription of the apology:

"I do want to apologize for what happened the other night. I want to apologize to everybody because everybody thought that it was a racist comment that I said. I don't have a racist bone in my body. I have nothing but love for everybody. Some of my guys are Muslim, some of my guys are Jews. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, whites, it doesn't matter. I got nothing but love in my heart. All I want to say is, if anybody was affected from what I said the other day, I apologize as a man. I was just having fun. I didnt really mean it."

Mayweather also sent condolences out to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, whose son John died this week in the Cascades in Washington.

Mayweather's apology will inevitably meet a mixed reaction. He already had plenty of boxing fans who didn't care for him to begin with, and others may have been officially pushed over the edge by his absurd and offensive tirade against Pacquiao.

But I will say that at the very least, he apologized. Whether he recognizes it as an actual offense or not (and I would hazard a guess that he doesn't), at least he understands that something about it was wrong. He's not totally oblivious, as stupid as his comments were.

And anyway, for now, Mayweather is just a figure in boxing. He has no fight on the horizon, while Pacquiao will fight on November 13 in a fight that has drawn its own considerable share of criticism. Revisiting a Mayweather-Pacquiao bout -- should Pacquiao beat Antonio Margarito -- is also inevitable, and Top Rank has said that May 2011 is the new target. We'll see if any of the media backlash from the video incident or the Margarito fight affect public demand should the sides negotiate again. Given the personalities and all the drama, plus the age we live in where these things interest a lot of people who otherwise would not care less, I have my doubts that a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight can be dented too badly from the side of public demand.